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“My mother was a priestess of the Saint, you see. A genuinely god-touched one.” -Paladin’s Hope, Chapter 14
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The role of the priests and priestesses of the Saint of Steel was often just as complicated as those of the other gods. They were in constant communication with the folk around their temples, learning of disputes and bandits, sending word ahead to clear the paths for their paladins and arranging cleanup after the battles. They also conducted regular services, nursed the sick and injured, listened to the prayers of the betrayed and angry. They, better than some, knew how to collaborate, working with the Dreaming God's paladins to take out demons, and with the White Rat to find refuge for folks whose homes had been flattened by their paladins.
During the war with the clocktaurs, Mona had been a battle crier, summoning her paladins to the front lines and directing the great forces of the Saint. When Mona really got going, the Saint’s divine rage would flow through her. Full of fire and brimstone she was, with her red hair burning like the sun. She could shake the faith of the Saint’s Chosen, tear a man down, and build him up again just with her words.
Her wee bairn… well. Bless him, Galen got her good looks and her quick temper. (“Try to flirt with my mother again, Istvhan, see what happens!” They’d had a good spar and turned out better friends for it.) Her boy couldn’t use the voice of a priest or a paladin, but that had been obvious even before the Saint had blessed him.
Bearing a baby berserker had not been a surprise to her. It had, in fact, been one of the things that drove a wedge between her and her husband. “What if he’s called to the Saint?” she had asked, “what will you do if there are two of us?” And then the man had not stuck around to find out.
Mona was proud of her boy. She let him get away with a little too much, if she was honest with herself. Always had, and he knew it, too. Galen would stand there grinning while she scolded him and the other paladins, as if she wouldn’t notice. She’d smack the back of his head, send him off to do extra chores, and that was that.
Mona could find her son in any crowd. A mother’s instinct, sure, but their hair made them stand out. She’d worried, for a time, that being the son of a priestess would single him out somehow. The Saint’s Chosen were a practical lot, however, and a berserker was a berserker no matter their mother. He’d fit in quickly, and just as quickly helped to reassure others who had little experience with the battle tide. He would grow into a good man. Of that she was sure.
She was sure of many things. She knew the Saint’s golden fire in her heart. She knew she had a touch of the Sight, another gift from her god. She had foreseen her husband leaving, and had foreseen her son’s blessing. She could see the outcome of a battle, though she attributed that more to strategy than true predictions. Mona knew and celebrated and mourned many things before their time.
“I think I shall be with the Saint by the time Galen marries.” She had sighed to another priestess while working together one evening.
“Oh?” Lorna had asked, pausing in her duties. “He’s a nice boy, will it really take him that long to find a good man?”
Mona shrugged. “I can see his wedding, but I am not the officiant. You know I would be, if I were going to be there.” She had, once upon a time, been looking forward to it.
“Who is?”
“The White Rat.”
“The Rat?” Lorna laughed. “Will Galen marry a lawyer?”
Mona laughed too, leaning into the woman’s side. “Oh, I don’t know. I can’t see that much detail, you know that. I just know he’ll be happy. He will marry someone kind.”
“Of course he will,” Lorna had patted her arm. “He has you for an example.”
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Two days after Mona kissed goodbye to her son when he and several others left for Hallowbind, she was bringing water to the chapel. Halfway across the flagstones of the temple yard she’d frozen, gold-red blood soaking her Sight. She dropped the jug, threw back her head, and screamed. The Saint was dead before the water hit the ground.
She fell to her knees in the puddle, wailing like a banshee. Her voice carried above the cacophony erupting around her, high and eerie and floating back again from the hills around the temple. The swords, the spears, the axes, and all the steel in the temple sang a requiem for the god. Metal flashed in the sun and blood ran across the flagstones.
She was not conscious by the time the high priest erected his pyre, but her screams echoed across the hills. All who heard her felt the cold shiver of death running down their spine.
Many miles away, Galen screamed back.